Donald Trump pauses during while speaking at a rally in Millington, Tenn. (AP/Andrew Harnik)
American women are paying more attention to politics since Donald Trump was elected, according to a Pew Research Center report released Thursday, and the same percentage of Americans of both sexes said they find it stressful to talk politics with people with whom they disagree.
Fifty-eight percent of women said they are paying increased attention to politics since the 2016 election, which saw one of the largest voting gender gaps in history. Only 46 percent of men say they have been paying more attention to politics since Trump became president, according to the Pew survey of 2,505 American adults conducted this month.
Women are also more likely than men to have attended a political event, rally or protest since the election. Seventeen percent of women have attended such an event since Nov. 8, while 12 percent of men said they have done the same.
Sixty-seven percent of people who have attended a political event since the election told Pew researchers they did so to oppose Trump or his policies.
The poll found that women Democrats are more than three times more likely to have attended a political event or protest in the past eight months than Republican-leaning women.
Democrats with college and postgraduate degrees are more likely to have participated in a political event, but there is still a wide gap between Democratic men and women. Forty-three percent of Democratic women with postgraduate degrees have participated in such an event, compared to 30 percent of Democratic men with postgraduate degrees.
Democratic men are more likely to have attended a political event than Republican men, according to the poll.
Overall, more Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (58 percent) said they have been paying more attention to politics since the election than Republicans and Republican-leaners (46 percent).
Democrats are also more likely to feel frustrated talking about politics with people who have different opinions about Trump. Sixty-eight percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaners told researchers that it’s stressful to talk about Trump with people who have a different opinion of the president, while 42 percent of Republicans said they found such conversations interesting and informative.
Sixty-four percent of women said they were frustrated by political conversations with people whose ideologies differ from their own, compared to 54 percent of men.
White Democrats are more likely to be frustrated by such conversations than black and Hispanic Democrats, according to the report. Seventy-four percent of white Democrats said political conversations with Trump supporters are frustrating, compared to 56 percent of black Democrats.
Despite the stress of talking about politics, most people surveyed said that knowing that a friend had voted for Trump or Hillary Clinton would not have any effect on their friendship.
About one in five American adults say that knowing a friend had voted for Trump would put a strain on their friendship, while 7 percent said that knowing a friend had voted for Clinton would strain their friendship.
The survey found that the majority of Americans, regardless of what party they identify with, say that people in the other party share many of their same values and goals.
© Courthouse News Service
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